@spotlight

Swell Spotlight: Neerja Narayanan

She has helped great commercial and indie projects get off the ground. She set the standards for the BAFTA Awards, Toronto, Venice Film Festival, Sundance, south by Southwest, the Asia Pacific and India National Awards. She's worked on over 50 features. She has such insight into how things begin with a little idea. And then a couple of years later, they're on the big screen. So welcome, Nirja, thanks so much for being here with us

18 years as a senior media exec - #sony #fox #disney We are looking at filmmaking today in the time of #covid #blm #socialjustice

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@spotlight

https://www.linkedin.com/in/neerja-narayanan-90412718/

And here? S that LinkedIn profile that I promised I'd link here
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@Neerja
Neerja Narayanan
@Neerja · 2:12

#fallingrain #soundofrain #wetearth #mysound

For the first question, which is the sound that sort of speaks to my soul, I would say that my instinctual response to that was the sound of falling rain on fresh, wet Earth. It's just a sound that brings me a sense of comfort and a sense of home and coziness. Even though I grew up in India, and the monsoons in India are very different from rainstorms here. They're quite similar to Hurricanes that you get in the Caribbean, but still the Santa frame
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@Neerja
Neerja Narayanan
@Neerja · 5:00

#empathy #globalstories #representation #women #poc #film #tv #artists #blm

So I think my history is sort of a good precursor to the movements that are going on right now and in fact, just validates the trajectory that I've had in terms of selecting work that either highlights new talent or shows an issue from a new perspective, but also in a commercial way. I don't think necessarily these need to be art house or documentaries
@Neerja
Neerja Narayanan
@Neerja · 4:55

#culture #film #tv #gatekeepers #bipoc #popculture #parasitemovie #oscars

But best film was given to a South Korean film in the Korean language with only Korean actors called Parasite with a phenomenal director whose work I am very familiar with, but I understand that it was an eye opening experience for a lot of viewers, not just in America but across the world
@DBPardes
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:02

Write what you know? Given the NEEDS we have for global shifts in empathy

The idea of global currency is so interesting to me. The concept of knowing in your situation, how you spend your time, the decisions you make truly ripple out and impact so many people. It's something think just to take a deep breath as I listen to both of your responses. Thank you. I realized the privilege and the burden of being able to shape culture in the way that you can. And here's my question for you
@Neerja
Neerja Narayanan
@Neerja · 4:22

#whotellsyourstory #authenticvoice #levelplayingfield #representation

People say that, oh, we can't have them write their own stories because they don't have enough experience, so they don't have the track record? Well, how are they supposed to get the experience or track record unless they are given the opportunities? So they've never had that opportunity before. Which is why I made the point earlier about the gatekeepers needing to change. So my personal response to this is that it's about time, that white storytellers give way to storytellers of color
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@Swell
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15

Welcome to Swell!

@DBPardes
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:17

The pendulum swing and the perfect scenario of creative freedom

And then after that, can you speak to the idea of the perfect scenario where someone it's like your point is hit me so hard about, like, we want representation, but we want someone who is disabled and a person of color to be able to write a beautiful movie about the opposite of that and not have to be expected to write within that realm because, of course, you'd expect them to. But the freedom to write into any realm any way you want
@Neerja
Neerja Narayanan
@Neerja · 4:37

Formats, technology, plethora of platform, experimentation in genres

For example, nowadays you can create a story just using your iphone and your iphone camera or on Instagram stories or short form like TikTok et cetera. So there are innovations happening in the kinds of stories which allow different kinds of creators to get access to them, whether they're people who are differently abled, whether they're people from other cultures, whether they're people who want to work in other languages and people from marginalized communities here in America
@DBPardes
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 0:56

NOW OPEN to questions from all Swellcasters (That’s you!) Swells live on..

So thank you for this threat. And let's hope that we have some interesting questions that come in in the next couple of weeks. And let's see who's going to be active in the spotlight. So here we go
@Shaz
Shaz
@Shaz · 1:17

#yourprofessionaljourney #adviceforyoungfilmmakers

Hi, Nyuja and Deborah, this was a really interesting conversation. I absolutely love watching movies, and I'm really happy about the fact that you spoke about your background and where you're from. Thank you so much for this. I love the two movies that you mentioned along with the bus in the end, fashion. So my first question is, could you talk about your professional journey? Where did you start? What inspired you to get into this business? And how was the career pathway?
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@sudha
Sudha Varadarajan
@sudha · 1:24

A Wednesday and Disruption in the industry

And the second question I have is on disruption with Netflix and YouTube and so many technology players entering the movie making business. Is it just a matter of time before the major production houses of Hollywood shut down doors? And are we going to see a more distributed, user controlled distribution pattern emerge? What's the sense in the industry, the sense of what's coming down the pipeline
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@Neerja
Neerja Narayanan
@Neerja · 4:56

#createyouropportunities #stayhumble #becurious #collaboration #leanin

We had gohannes, we had balls, and we were just like, you know what? Screw it. The system is shutting us out. We're going to break the system. And that became a very successful film festival that ran for a couple of years and toured England. And it allowed me to meet filmmakers that I had admired on an equal footing as opposed to just beginner coming into the business and meet business people
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@Neerja
Neerja Narayanan
@Neerja · 4:59

#casting #resonatingstories #streaming #cinema #opportunity #newplatforms

I want to get to the second question now, which is from Sudha, which is a twopart question. So addressing the first part, thank you so much for your kind words about the the film for Wednesday. It's a film that I'm proud of, and it won the Indian National Award for best film, and neither won it for Best Rector on screenplay that year as well. If I'm not mistaken. And it's a film that was very timely
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@MysticScientist
Indy Rishi Singh
@MysticScientist · 1:45
And it was really frustrating that as an Indian, I didn't want to do those roles. I felt really it was against my principles to project that type of representation of my people that way. I struggled with that a lot. And eventually I left it. And I got interested in writing. And outside of that, I started getting into community building and education and kind of really put my energy into there and kind of left the writing and stuff kept doing that, but left that to the side
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@Neerja
Neerja Narayanan
@Neerja · 4:55

#marathonnotasprint #usetechnology #auditions #castingagencies #research

It is a life of rejection and a life of being judged and then dismissed. So it's not for everybody. But if it's something that you want to do, then I think that you do two things. One is, as I said, make your content, write these skits, write roles for yourself. Being right monologues. You can even do replaying rehashing of scenes from movies that you like from your perspective
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